


I Really Need an Answer, I Really Need a Yes

by spuffyduds



Category: due South
Genre: Community: ds_flashfiction, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-12
Updated: 2010-08-12
Packaged: 2017-10-11 01:47:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/106967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spuffyduds/pseuds/spuffyduds
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kowalski's visit is unannounced, unexpected, and unusual.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Really Need an Answer, I Really Need a Yes

**Author's Note:**

> Didn't use archive warning because warning is somewhat spoilery; have put it in note at end of fic so you can decide whether to be spoiled or not. I would guess it would NOT tend to be triggery, but that is just a guess.

Ray's dreaming about throwing pebbles at Irene's window, but she never appears, and the dream gets louder and louder until he grumbles awake, and oh, something's hitting _his_ window. What the _hell_.

He sits up, figuring he'll pull on a dressing gown and go be cautious, stand beside the window and peer out carefully without presenting a target. Probably it's some asshole neighborhood kid just messing with the cop, but you never know. But as soon as he sits up he can see in the moonlight that there's somebody actually _at_ the window. And the hair's familiar.

Ray goes over to the window and throws the sash up, which makes that Christmas poem start bouncing around in his head. "What to my wondering eyes should appear," he says, and yawns. "Kowalski, what are you _doing_?"

"Oh, you know, was hitting the bars, got bored," Kowalski says, which is when Ray wakes up enough to remember that his bedroom is on the second floor.

"What are you on?" he says, and Kowalski looks at him reproachfully. "Haven't done drugs since I started the Academy, Vecchio," he says. "Well, a few weeks before that, to make sure everything cleared out of the system, you know?"

"No, I mean, what are you _on_?" Ray says, and sticks his head out the window and looks down. He can't see a thing.

"About that," Kowalski says. "It's--I'm--it's been a weird fuckin' night, Vecchio. You gonna invite me in or what?"

And then he leans in and sniffs at Ray's neck. "You smell good," he says, and Ray jerks his head back in so fast he bangs it against the window.

He sits down on the edge of his bed and just considers things for a while, but the world doesn't start making any more sense.

"Are you making a pass at me?" he says. "While floating?"

"Guilty," Kowalski says cheerfully, and smiles, and in the moonlight his smile is...sharper.

"Oh," Ray says. "Oh, fuck."

"Yeah, not what I was expecting out of my night either," Kowalski says. "Got jumped by three guys coming out of the bar, and when one of the fuckers went for my _throat_ I figured I was _dead_. Which I guess I was. Am. Technically."

He stretches out and...lies down in the air outside the window, which makes Ray's brain hurt. "It's pretty great, though, Vecchio, I gotta say. I got the flying thing happening, and I'm really strong, and my hearing is fantastic and I don't need glasses anymore--I bet I'd be an even better shot, now--and I just feel really...alive."

"Ironic," Ray says. He's chatting. He can't believe he's chatting. He should be--calling Fraser up in Canada to ask him how to whittle, or something. That'd go well. "Are you just looking for the stress relief of the process, Ray, or do you wish to learn more product-centered whittling techniques? Representational sculpture, perhaps?" "_Stakes_, Fraser." "Ah."

"I'm kinda lonely, though," Kowalski says, and does a slow roll in midair, like he was on a spit. "And cold. And horny. And hungry."

"Yeah, well, the 'hungry's not really selling it, there," Ray says.

"Probably should have left that part out."

"Uh-huh." Ray puts his face in his hands for a minute, just trying to think. Everybody else in the house is off on the yearly jaunt to Ma's sister in Florida, so at least he doesn't have to worry about toddlers getting undead, or anything. He can feel, somewhere off in the back of his head, rage building about the fact that these guys killed a _cop_, killed his _partner_, but the fact that the partner is question is currently talking to him and spinning slowly outside his window is--slowing the ragebuild up a little bit with sheer confusion.

"What are we gonna do here, Kowalski?" he says. "What are the--rules? All that stuff about sunlight and crosses and beheadings, is that real? Do you have to drink blood? Does it have to be people blood, or will animals work? Do you gotta kill the people you drink from, or can you...sip?"

Kowalski stops spinning and glares at him. "You know, Vecchio, the guy who _bit me in the throat and shoved his fucking bloody wrist in my mouth_ didn't leave me a brochure. I don't _know_ what the rules are. I can see your cross from here and I still want to bite your neck, I want that a lot, so I'm guessing the cross doesn't work. I don't have any particular urge to kill you--well, no more than usual--so maybe I can just sip. I hope I can, because I really don't want to kill you, Vecchio. But I don't even have words for how much I want to bite you, and Vecchio? I kinda wanted that before this happened."

"Oh," Ray says. "I'd been wondering."

He walks over to the window and stands close, puts his hands on the sill. "But the invitation thing, that's real?"

"Seems to be," Kowalski says. "Because I really wanna be in there. But I'm still out here."

"Yeah," Ray says, and leans his forehead against the upper panes. He's supposed to say no, of course he is, but he's having trouble coming up with a reason to. His partnership with Kowalski was going so great, Welsh was loving their solve rate and they got along surprisingly well and--okay, it was the only thing in his life that _was_ going good, that wasn't just shit.

And he'd noticed Kowalski looking at him lately and done a little looking himself, and been thinking maybe, maybe. He tries to picture what tomorrow will be like if he closes the window and pulls down the shade and leaves Kowalski out there alone and cold and dead. He doesn't like the tomorrow he's picturing.

"Vecchio," Kowalski says, softly. "It's--there's a lot of cool stuff to it but it's a little scary, too. I'm. I'm _scared_, okay? Let me in."

And fuck, that tears it, that's his partner out there, and Ray says, "Come in," and Kowalski smiles.

 

\---end---

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: Character death. Sort of.


End file.
